PNP will ask security companies to increase deployment at transportation terminals

MANILA, Philippines – Following the murder of a couple on a bus in Nueva Ecija, the Philippine National Police (PNP) Office of Oversight of Security and Investigative Agencies (PNP-SOSIA) said on Monday that it would order all security agencies to intensify their deployment at transportation terminals.

“We will be issuing an advisory to all security agencies, especially those operating in different terminals, to intensify their implementation [and] visual inspections,” PNP-SOSIA police chief Brigadier General Gregory Bogñalbal told reporters at a press conference on Monday.

“Our guards need to strictly inspect the luggage that enters the vehicles. So we should instruct them to do that,” he added in Filipino.

According to Bogñalbal, the PNP also began monitoring K9 units deployed at transportation terminals.

“We are looking at the ability of the dogs to determine if they are up to date in their training and are still able to detect what needs to be detected,” he said.

“We carried out samples and are pleased to announce that all the dogs we checked are still capable of detecting explosives.”

Meanwhile, PNP-SOSIA legal officer Captain Geronimo de Guzman Jr. said charges could be filed against the security guards and agencies if they were proven to be negligent.

“They can be held responsible [the] less serious offense of neglect of duty, and we will conduct an investigation if there is a formal complaint. Or even without a formal complaint, we have the power to conduct an investigation,” he said.

This was the PNP’s response to an incident on November 15, in which a woman and her companion were shot dead by unidentified armed men inside a bus while traveling in the city of Carranglan, in Nueva Ecija.

READ: Son of victim ‘person of interest’ in Nueva Ecija bus shooting

The gunmen shot the victims several times in the head and neck before descending near a river in Barangay Minuli.